Hail (Hagel)
Hail is a natural hazard in which precipitation in the form of ice pellets damages buildings, vehicles, and crops, and is typically covered as a named peril in homeowners, contents, motor, and agricultural policies.
Concept
Hail refers to precipitation in the form of ice pellets that is covered as a distinct insured peril in property, motor, and agricultural insurance. Hail losses typically affect building envelopes (roofs, facades), motor vehicles (bodywork damage, so-called “hail dents”), and agricultural crops.
Insurance Treatment
In homeowners and contents insurance, hail is regularly covered together with windstorm as a combined “storm/hail” peril, while other natural catastrophe perils such as flood or earthquake are often a separate optional extension. In motor insurance, hail is one of the perils covered under partial (comprehensive) own-damage cover. Because hail events are spatially concentrated (localized thunderstorm cells) and can produce high accumulation losses within a short time, hail is a significant accumulation risk factor for primary and reinsurers, which is modeled separately in natural catastrophe models.
Relevance for Reinsurance and Risk Management
Because hail events can be regionally highly concentrated (e.g., hail swaths spanning several kilometers), they are a material component of catastrophe excess-of-loss programs in property reinsurance; modeling is usually performed jointly with windstorm risk within probabilistic natural catastrophe models.